Front and Center on the Sidelines; Lone Boy on Long Beach High School Cheerleading Squad Hears Jeers, Too

By VIVIAN S. TOY

Published: December 3, 2000

LONG BEACH—
SCOT HOROWITZ is one of the best-known students at Long Beach High School.

That's not because he's a senior. Or because he'll probably be a co-captain of the varsity tennis team this spring. Or because he has a bright smile and easy manner that girls tend to find appealing.

It's because he is the only male on the school's squad of 16 cheerleaders.

He doesn't carry pompoms, but he does wear a uniform that differs only in the pants he wears instead of his teammates' traditional short skirts. Not only does he lift girls up into the air -- a routine role for male cheerleaders at the college level -- he also stomps and dances right alongside them. His joining the team has caused quite a stir at this school of 1,250.

Fans booed him from the stands at the first few football games he appeared at this fall, but Scot finished the football season and is on the cheerleading squad for the coming basketball season. As the cheerleading team practices every day after school, some students still gawk in disbelief. And the mere mention of his name easily prompts an animated discussion among students, who are deeply divided over this 17-year-old who has broken new ground for Long Beach High School, perhaps for high schools across Long Island.

Fruitcake, pansy and sissy are the milder appellations used to describe him. His friends leap to his defense if they're within earshot, and one friend wrote columns for the local and school newspapers taking Scot's critics to task for their boorishness and intolerance.

Scot just shrugs off what he calls ''the negativity'' that has been aimed at him since he tried out for the cheerleading team last spring. ''One of my best friends is a captain on the team, and she said I should try out,'' he said. ''I figured why not, I'm not doing a sport in the fall anyway and I felt maybe I should break the mold.''

He clearly has taken his new role very seriously. He went to cheerleading camp with 10 of his teammates at Hofstra University over the summer and did some weight lifting to bring his slight 115-pound frame to 130 pounds. It also helped that he grew three inches, and is now 5-foot-7.

School officials see him as something of a trailblazer and have watched the student body's reaction closely to make sure it doesn't cross the boundary from adolescent teasing to harassment. So far, they say, it hasn't.

''Whenever you break down barriers and are the first to do something, you're going to encounter some opposition,'' said Richard Shear, the school's principal. ''There's less flexibility in certain areas of society than people realize, but I think the experience has been good for Scot and for the school. As a society, we're moving along.''

The curb on the other side of the fence that marks the end of school grounds is where smokers and their friends like to hang out after school. One day last week, when a reporter brought up Scot and the cheerleading squad, the recognition was instant, the venom generous.

Justin Zaleski, 16, a junior, used an anti-gay slur to describe Scot.

''Don't be mean,'' one girl scolded.

''But he is,'' Justin persisted. ''He doesn't just hold the girls up in the air, he goes up in the air too, and that bothers me.''

''If he's doing it to get chicks, that's one thing,'' said Frank Silvestro, 16, another junior. ''But I think he's just doing it because he's a little fruity.''

''I'm sure he's not gay,'' said Stephen Coughlin, a 16-year-old senior who has known Scot since kindergarten. ''But he's always been like that girly type. He's the one and only guy on the squad, and he doesn't belong there.''

''I don't know why a guy would go for the cheerleading team,'' said Jennifer Terrone, 16, a junior. ''It's mostly guys who make fun of him and I guess it's kind of mean, but what do you expect?''

When prodded, Emma Lawe, a 17-year-old senior, spoke in support of Scot. ''I don't think there's anything wrong with it,'' she said. ''I feel bad for him because people make fun of him, but if he has enough self-esteem to do it, good for him.''

It was a conversation not unlike this one that prompted Gillian Candelaria, 16, to write an article about Scot that ran last month in The Long Beach Herald and to write an opinion essay for the school paper, The Tide.

''Somehow Scot's name came up during my math class one day and people were all saying negative things like he's a sissy or a girly-boy,'' Gillian said. ''It was like a 15-minute discussion, and I was shocked because it wasn't just boys but girls saying these things too.''

Gillian defended her friend Scot. ''I said, 'You're just insecure about your own masculinity, and Scot's one of the most masculine guys I know because he's not just trying to be like everybody else. He's sure of himself.' '' But she said her arguments fell on deaf ears. ''I just got so angry I decided to write about it,'' she said.

In her essay in the school paper, Gillian concluded that ''some students are scared of Scot's individuality'' and that ''we have become so close-minded that a switch of stereotypical gender roles frightens some of us.''